Common Topics

Netbooks are the only segment of the PC market growing, and while netbooks installed with Windows are good for the ubiquity of Windows and power of Microsoft, they deny Microsoft money that might have gone on more expensive, premium editions of Windows on notebooks and desktops.

With Windows 7, out as a release candidate this week and next, Microsoft hopes you’ll succumb to a Jedi Mind Trick: that you’ll buy a netbook with a version of Windows 7 that will only let you run three applications simultaneously and that won’t have a media player or simplified networking, but that you’ll like Windows 7 so much you’ll then want to buy a notebook or desktop running a full version of Windows 7.

And Microsoft wonders why European regulators are so willing to see the company in court. But then, hey, they are a bunch of latte-drinking, European socialists - what would they know about liberty and the spirit of free enterprise, the hallmarks of capitalism and Microsoft?

Also in this latest edition of MicroBite, we look at why you shouldn’t expect Microsoft to follow database and software rival Oracle with a hardware- or systems-company purchase of its own.

That’s straight from the House Un-Microsoft Activities Committee (HUMAC). If such a thing existed. Microsoft does, though, plan to compete against Oracle in the market for massive, mainframe-like database appliances - so, rest assured, there is some red-blooded, meat-eating competition ahead for all you Ayn Rand types.

Catch the whole, 35-minute, pinko-loving-free-market-hating-left-bashing-competitive-embrace of MicroBite using The Reg player below, in MP3 or Ogg Vorbis format.®